Orion Murdock may not be the captain’s son by birth, but he’s been living on the ship ever since the cap picked him up as an orphaned Devan street kid, so everyone refers to him as such. The Red Baron’s pilot is a lanky man a handful of years older than me, with deep tan skin, loose brown curls, and a shadow of stubble across an angular jaw.

“Hi again,” I say. He spits at my feet, his pretty features twisted in a scowl.

“Can I trust you to kill her instead of fucking her this time?” Izra asks, glaring at him.

He grimaces. “That was one lapse in judgment.”

“Two, actually,” I say, thinking back to our tryst. “There were two lapses in judgment.”

Then Izra looks at me again, and my tongue shrivels in my mouth. I gulp.

“Trust me, I deserve to be the one who kills her,” Orion says.

“Then do it already.”

“I’d love to. Slowly and painfully and such. But we might need a hostage, and a useless pilot is perfect for that.”

With two guns and Izra’s glare still aimed at me, I keep my mouth shut and keep my eyes on the—barrel? Mouth? I’m not sure how to refer to the front end of her freakish alien gun arm. Mouth somehow seems more accurate.

An explosion rattles the ceiling above us, and we all look up.

“I’m guessing they need your help with those twins,” Orion says to his shipmate. “Leave this to me.”

With a growl under her breath—an actual growl, which nearly makes me piss myself—Izra shoves past me and stalks toward the stairs, every step slow and menacing despite the immediacy of the situation. Orion moves closer to me, his blaster still aimed at my face.

“Okay, hostage,” he says in a low voice, pressing his gun against my cheek. He pauses, glances at Izra’s back as she disappears around the corner, and breaks into a broad grin. “Pretty convincing, huh?”

“Honestly, you laid it on a little thick,” I say, and we both burst into laughter. He lowers his gun, and I let my arms drop to my sides. “Been a while. How’s it going, friend?”